Big day in the TCE world today, marked by 1 word: LEGISLATION.

Okay, maybe two words: PROPOSED LEGISLATION

Today, Senators Clinton, Dole, Boxer, Lautenberg, and Kerry introduced a bill that proposes to:

Amend the Safe Water Drinking Act to protect the health of susceptible populations, including pregnant women, infants, and children, by requiring a health advisory, drinking water standard, and reference concentration for trichloroethylene vapor intrusion, and for other purposes.

Cited formally as the "Toxic Chemical Exposure Reduction Act of 2007" (get it? "TCE Reduction Act"?) the Senators have proposed that EPA revise the national standard for allowable TCE levels in public drinking water, create a national standard for allowable TCE in indoor air, and enforce nationwide monitoring and cleanups based on these new standards. All of this is proposed to occur within the 3-18 months of the bill's enactment.

Since the details of the bill are interesting and worth comment, we'll post them here shortly. For now, we'll say this: We think this bill, if passed and enforced, could go a long way towards better protecting the public from TCE.

Of course, if the EPA chooses to or is forced to play politics, we also envision ways that they could still stagnate change even if the bill is passed…

As we said, more to come from us on this. Meantime, you can download the full bill here.

Lastly, we are in the process of contacting Senators from our home state, Connecticut, to ask for their support for this legislation. We strongly urge readers to contact their state Senators as well.

(If any readers do contact their Senators for support, please consider letting us know the kind of feedback you receive. If we’re able to keep track of whom has pledged their support, we’ll keep readers posted by running updates on this blog. What could possibly be more exciting?)

UPDATE: For the official press release from Senator Clinton announcing the proposed legislation, see here.